Italian Renaissance Designer or

Influential American Landscape Architect: The Life and Work of Marian Cruger Coffin

1876 – 1951

Lee M. Pouliot Spring 2009

History of American Landscape Architecture

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The inaccurate study and interpretation of the remaining body of Marian Cruger Coffin’s

work has unfairly led to her career being termed that of an ‘Italian Renaissance landscape

designer’ (Fleming 12). Though trained by those who extolled the classic ideals of the Italian

Renaissance, Coffin also embraced and developed a sophisticated set of planting techniques

which were equal in weight to her technical ‘hardscape’ elements. To understand the work of

Coffin and the resultant influences on present day landscapes, one must understand how she was

able to enter a world dominated by men and succeed at opening the first landscape architecture

firm directed by an American woman. While just a few of Coffin’s designs have been preserved to

honor her original intentions, the understanding of her design philosophies can reveal the

dominant traits of the American Renaissance and Country Place Era movements, while offering a

glimpse at how American society was evolving during the early part of the 20th century.

Coffin was born on September 27, 1876 in Scarborough, New York. Her father, Julian

Ravenel Coffin was a descendant of the early settlers of Nantucket. The family had at one time

owned plantations on St. Helena Island and a townhouse in Charleston, South Carolina, all of

which were lost during the Civil War while Julian was studying in Germany (8). Marian’s

mother, Alice Church Coffin was a descendant of the well-known Church family of Alleghany

County, New York. Coffin could point to a number of prominent ancestors, including a great-

great-uncle John Trumbull who was a colonial painter, Revolutionary War General Philip

Schuyler, well known for his participation in the Sullivan-Clinton Campaign to break what

remained of the Iroquois Confederacy (Adamiak 1), and Governor Jonathan Trumbull of

Connecticut. Further, her uncle, Benjamin Church worked as an engineer laying out Fredrick

Law Olmsted’s design for Central Park in Manhattan (Fleming 8).

Julian and Alice married in 1874. Marian was born in 1876 and when she was just six

years old, her father died from, “…complications of malaria…” leaving his widow and daughter

with $300 (8). Unable to support Marian with no income, the two moved to Geneva, New York

to live with Alice’s sister Harriet and eventually with her brother John Barker Church IV

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(Zaitzevsky 76). Both homes were located on South Main Street, on the north end of Seneca

Lake during a time when Geneva was described as, “…’a paradise – the proud street along the

lake, with its sloping gardens and distant views, the large families of gay young people, the

informal but bountiful entertaining’…” (Fleming 9). A majority of Marian’s education was

provided by private tutors, while her religious education was guided by Trinity Church, where

she was confirmed Episcopalian. While some accounts of her childhood describe Marian as

being, “…so delicate and frail…,” she developed advanced skills as a horsewoman and golfer

(Fleming 9 / Zaitzevsky 76) and spent a great deal of time outdoors.

Although her mother’s income was limited, she was able to retain the family’s societal

connections. Of these connections, Alice’s friendship with Mary Pauline Forester would prove

most valuable to Marian. Alice served as Mary’s maid-of-honor when she wed Henry Algernon

du Pont of Winterthur, Delaware in 1874 (Fleming 9). Henry and Mary would have two

children, Louise and Henry Francis, who would become Marian’s childhood playmates, lifelong

friends, and clients.

As Marian grew, so too did her desire to become an artist. In a letter to a friend she

wrote, “I secretly cherished the idea of being a great artist in the future…” (7). However, with no

talent in the acceptable forms of artistic expression including music, painting, writing, and

sculpture practiced by women during the early 1900’s, her dream seemed impossible of

becoming a reality. By her mid-twenties, she remained unmarried and was grappling with yet

another burden: her mother’s family would not be able to continue caring for Alice as she aged.

Marian realized that both she and her mother’s future depended on her ability to earn a living.

Continuing her letter, Marion wrote, “…my artistic yearnings lay fallow until I realized it was

necessary to earn my living, when talking over the problem with some friends, one of them an

architect, said he thought that some courses in ‘Landscape Gardening’ for women were to be

started in this country and that it would be an interesting thing for a woman to go in for…” (7).

Marian knew well the successes of Beatrix Jones Farrand, who is considered the first female

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landscape architect and researched what options may exist. She became interested in a newly

created program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and in 1901 moved herself and her

mother to Boston to enroll in the program.

With only a few months of regular school attendance, Marian was completely unprepared

for the rigors of the MIT program which required its students to fulfill the same curriculum as

architecture students during the first three years, with a focus on landscape issues only during the

last year of study. As Marion discusses, “…when it was reluctantly dragged from me that I had

had only a smattering of algebra and hardly knew the meaning of the word ‘geometry,’ the

authorities turned from me in calm contempt (7). With encouragement from a few MIT faculty

members, Marian embarked on an intensive tutoring program and was admitted as a ‘special’

student in Landscape Architecture – finishing the program in three years (7). While receiving

passing grades in all her studies, Coffin never wrote a thesis, the final requirement for an MIT

degree and therefore never officially graduated from the program (Zaitzevsky 78).

To understand Coffin’s design philosophy, one must take into account the major themes

in the American design professions during her years of study at MIT. The Columbian Exposition

of 1893, of which Frederick Law Olmsted played a major design role, had awakened a sense of the

classic ideal, which would influence American architecture and landscape architecture for at least

the next fifty years (Newton 370-371). Until the Exposition, Olmsted’s natural style where,

“…no sign of the work of man should be obvious,” held sway as the dominant mode of landscape

expression (Fleming 11). Central Park and Prospect Park as well as a number of parks in Boston,

Buffalo and Chicago all exhibited Olmsted’s ideals. For the Exposition, however, Olmsted had to

adapt his design strategies and allow the architecture to dominate the space, while landscape

became secondary. Regardless, Olmsted’s work on the Court of Honor, solidified, “…the

remarkable integrative capacity inherent in the landscape architect’s major material, outdoor

space” (Newton, 370). The inherent cohesiveness of this design could have served as a lesson for

younger designers: that it was the importance of a clear spatial geometry and structure that was

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important in a layout not the outright imitation of another design style. As Norman Newton

states, “…architectonic vigor requires no obeisance to eclecticism” (371). Unfortunately, it was

the classic ideal which had captivated the mind of designers and the masses alike, which began

the American Renaissance period and the imitation of a number of Italian Renaissance designs.

One of most notable influences on Coffin’s education is the work of William and Charles

Platt. Charles, in 1894 published Italian Gardens which severely challenged Olmsted’s design

approach. As Newton explains,

“…individual spaces – both in Platt’s design and in the Italian villa – were as a rule crisply geometric, usually rectilinear, always firmly under control…For further strength and continuity, house and grounds were invariably treated as a single, fully integral composition...Given the frame work of such an architectonic complex, it is obvious that an overall scheme could not well contain any of the undulating surfaces and soft pastoral spaces of the park-like ‘landscape style’ until one got out beyond the influence of the perceptibly geometric…(376). Guy Lowell, an 1894 graduate of the MIT School of Architecture, directed creation of the

landscape architecture program at MIT in 1900 after the formation of the American Society of

Landscape Architects. Lowell, in 1902 would have Coffin as a student and publish American

Gardens, which showcased American designs that had embraced more geometric, classical

layouts. No doubt, Lowell was responsible for Coffin’s visit to Faulkner Farm, designed by

Charles Platt. In his book’s introduction, Lowell detailed MIT’s design principles, which only

emphasized the ideals that Platt presented to the American public,

“One of these principles…was to continue the lines of the house out into the grounds and thus to make the garden an outdoor room, bounded by hedge and wall in such a way as to make its proportions pleasing, and decorated not only with trees, shrubs, and flowers, but with fountains, statues, and vases, which offer a pleasing contrast to the vegetation…” (Fleming 11).

Coffin’s design ideals were heavily influenced by Lowell’s teachings. In fact, it is because

of these classical forms that Coffin had been inaccurately labeled an ‘Italian Renaissance

landscape designer’ (12). No doubt, Coffin utilized, “…axial design, emphasized paths by

edging…closed a rectangular space with a semicircle, used circles or oval ellipses…enclosed

spaces with walls or hedges, and used statuary…” (11). While these technical devices may have

been present in a majority of her designs, it is Coffin’s equal emphasis on planting design that has

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come to define a number of her projects as more than simply that of the Italian Renaissance.

Therefore, to fully understand Marian’s design theories, abilities, and projects one must also

consider her horticultural theories and training.

Coffin’s horticultural training took place on the grounds of Harvard’s Arnold Arboretum.

Twice a week, Coffin would study plant materials under the guidance of Professor J.G. Jack,

whose teachings and philosophies had been molded by the arboretum’s founder and director,

Professor Charles S. Sargent. Sargent’s philosophy with regards to landscape design was clearly

detailed in an 1889 article. He wrote,

“The work…of a true landscape maker is essentially unselfish; he can hardly hope to witness its completion, and his only delight is that of conception and of watching its growth as far as he may; the latter activity, akin to parental responsibility, is commingled with pain. It may be seen, then, that no other form of art creation deserves more reverent care, more protection from thoughtless or mischievous hand, than that of such a master whose canvas is the earth and whose pigments are the objects themselves…” (12).

Coffin echoes these sentiments in her own book, Trees and Shrubs for Landscape Effects,

published in 1940. In the introduction she states,

“Such an endless array of beautiful subjects from which to choose those best suited to our special needs,

makes the problem of selection difficult. The landscape architect knows and uses this mass of plant material to develop his plan, always keeping in mind its value to the composition at maturity…after all it is the right plant in the right place that will give that sense of restfulness and permanence that good planting should have, beautiful in themselves and in harmony with their surroundings (Coffin xviii – xix). She goes on to emphasize the importance of choosing the correct style of planting that is suitable

to the life and locality of the site, the proper scale, the interrelation of mass, texture, form, color,

and detail all of which determine the ultimate success of any planting scheme (xix). The bulk of

the book then details different planting situations and how the designer can utilize plants for

specific purposes. For example, chapter headings include ‘Approaching the House,’ ‘Lawn and

Terrace Treatment,’ ‘Walks Formal and Informal,’ and ‘Woodland’ (ix). These categories only

begin to break down the level of detail that was present in all of Coffin’s planting schemes.

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In 1904 after completing the MIT program, Marian moved with her mother from Boston

to New York City, where Alice had grown up. She had planning on finding employment in a

landscape architects office, but found herself denied over and over again because of a strong

prejudice against women in the profession (Fleming 15). Regardless of all her struggles, Marian

decided to begin her own business and in 1906 was working out of her home at the National Arts

Club, 15 Gramercy Park. That same year, she was accepted as a Junior Member of the ASLA.

She was the third woman to be accepted into the ranks of the national organization and the first

to receive formal training in landscape architecture.

Coffin’s first documented commission was in 1906 for Mr. and Mrs. Edward Sprague of

Flushing, New York. Since the couple was away for a majority of the summer, she designed for

the fall and spring effects. Her work here included a peony path and a one-hundred-fifty-foot iris

border (15). From the very beginnings of her professional practice, Coffin grasped the essentials

for successful client relationships. She stated, “…the first step was to ascertain the wishes of the

owners…the design must be in scale not only with the house and grounds but also with the

means and taste of the owner…” (15). She involved herself in the designing of her clients’ entire

properties including the drives, paths, woodlands, walkways and formal gardens (Bayberry Land

Biography). Her successes in 1906 along with her well established friendship with Henry Francis

du Pont led from one client to the next. Just a brief mention of her projects would include:

Oxmoor for William Marshall Bullitt, Bushy Park for Charles T. Ballard, and Wheatly Hills, Long

Island for Edward F. Hulton. She also worked on a number of estates for the Fricks, Pells, and du

Ponts, as well as projects for Fort Ticonderoga, the New York Botanical Garden and present day

University of Delaware (Fleming 15, Newton 443, Zaitzevsky 78).

Two projects stand out as arguably Coffin’s the most influential pieces of her career, the

plan of the University of Delaware and the ever-evolving gardens of Winterthur Estate. Both

projects survive today as two of the finest examples of her work. Coffin became the landscape

architect of the university in 1918 and served in this capacity until 1952. Once again it was

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through her social connections that she was able to receive such a commission; in 1917, Hugh

Rodney Sharp, a trustee became the Buildings and Grounds Committee chair at the college.

Sharp was the brother-in-law of Lammont du Pont, who was Henry Francis du Pont’s first cousin.

All three men not only were trustees of the college, but had hired Coffin to design their private

estates: Sharp’s Gibraltar, Lammont du Pont’s St. Amour, and Henry Francis’ Winterthur

(Fleming 58).

In 1870, the college, then known as Delaware College, made the decision to become co-

educational a decision that was then abolished in 1885. In 1914, the decision was made to

establish Women’s College as an affiliate campus to Men’s College. The trustees hired the Day

and Klauder architectural firm of Philadelphia to master plan the adjoining campuses and toured

the architects around southern Delaware showing them fine examples of the traditional 18th

century brick colonial architecture they desired (Fleming 58). Coffin shared the collective vision

of creating a beautiful institution for learning. In her 1919 report she stated,

“’…the new layout of both Men’s and Women’s Colleges…should afford a unique example in the Eastern States of what a College can be hen planned from the outset as a complete whole. Good planning of any such layout from its conception, taking into consideration not only its present needs but allowing for growth and expansion many years hence, is bound to express in the most economical as well as in the most beautiful manner…the life and aims of the institution’” (58-59). The resulting campus plan may very well be considered the most elegant piece Coffin created

during her career and showcased the full development of her talent in design. Her interventions

helped to break down the rigid, classical formality of the original master plan and gave both

campuses a more casual romantic character. W. Gary Smith, an assistant professor of soil and

plant science at the present day university, considers Coffin’s master stroke to be the solving of

major orientation challenges between the two campuses. The resulting Magnolia Circle,

“…helps create the illusion of a continual axis from Main Street down to East Park Place on south

campus…” (Hail 4). Coffin’s attention to detail added to the beauty and success of her plan. For

Men’s College, with its simplistic architectural form, Marian showed restraint in her planting

design by utilizing only evergreen species. She planted single lines of yew at the base of all

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buildings and where a plain wall existed, the yew line was interrupted with a taller evergreen

while still maintaining the essence of pure simplicity. Her planting design integrated the stately

central mall which had been planted with evenly spaced elms two years before her arrival

(Fleming 59 – 60).

At Women’s College, Coffin designed with colorful flowering trees and shrubs to evoke a

romantic feeling. The mall was to be planted with two unevenly spaced rows of honey locust in

contrast to the strict regularity of the Men’s Campus. Female students would welcome spring

with the blooms and scent of lilac, silver bell, deutzia, and roses. Spaces between central walks

and buildings were lined with hedges of barberry to create ‘doorway gardens’ which were planted

with a variety of flowering shrubs. The buildings themselves were cloaked in Japanese climbing

hydrangea (Schizophragma hydrangeoides) offering another vertical flowering element in the

planting scheme (62-63).

Another influential piece to this campus design is what Coffin termed the Recreation

Area. This area occupied the space between the two campuses and for Coffin was to be a place

where, “…young men and women may meet in their leisure moments, though the grounds in this

portion strictly belong to the Women…” (63). The layout contained three major portions: the

grass oval, and outdoor theatre and a park-like grove with winding paths much more reminiscent

of Olmsted’s design work then the classic ideals of the Italian Renaissance. A number of issues

stalled the completion of design installation. However, with the dedication and authority of

Sharp and the du Pont’s as well as their personal funds, the plans were eventually realized.

Today, a majority of the university’s plan as envisioned by Coffin remains intact. As of 1993,

William M.W. Sharp, Hugh Rodney Sharp’s grandson chaired the trustee’s visiting committee on

landscaping. The group worked to establish university-wide standards based on Coffin’s original

intentions to preserve her work and the campus’ beauty well into the future (Hail 4).

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By the time Coffin was asked to work at Winterthur, her business was booming with a list

of estate projects, especially in the Hamptons. Work at Winterthur spanned nearly her entire

career from 1910 through her death in 1957. The estate is known as the ancestral home of the du

Pont family whose earliest ancestors established gun powder mills in the Brandywine Valley

around 1800. In 1906, Colonel Henry Algernon du Pont, Henry Francis’ father was in the midst

of adding additional acreage to the working farm when he was elected to the United States Senate

and ceded supervision of the estate to his son, who continued his with his father’s plans. Henry

Francis’ interests ran wild as he made decisions for the estate. With formal training in agriculture

and horticulture, he worked to preserve a model of the agrarian way of life at Winterthur

continuing to produce crops to feed a large number of livestock including beef cattle, chickens,

hogs, sheep, and chickens. Other crops produced fruits and vegetable which fed the du Pont

family as well as the large number of workers responsible for keeping the 2,500 acre estate

running smoothly (Winterthur website).

Henry Francis is considered to be one of Coffin’s most demanding clients, “…he carefully

studied every variety of bulb he chose for the garden and corresponded frequently with Coffin

and Colwell about the merits of each flower. He experimented with naturalized narcissi and

other spring-flowering bulbs in front of the house…” (Fleming 82). Henry Francis was even

known to require Coffin to detail the exact location of the thousands of bulbs to be planted in the

various gardens of the estate. Marian produced a site master plan for the extended gardens and

house renovations during her years at Winterthur. She was responsible for renovations to the

existing sunken gardens and added a number of terraces to the area surrounding the house which

further expanded the more formal elements of the landscape. The most impressive of her

designed elements is the long garden stair leading to the original lily pond and newly constructed

swimming pool. Upon completion of the pool, Coffin turned her focus to installing the elaborate

planting designs she and Henry Francis had developed (82-92).

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As Winterthur continued to evolve Henry Francis would begin to amass a large collection

of Americana. After establishing a residence in the Hamptons, of which Coffin played a major

role, Henry Francis realized his collection would best be displayed in a number of ‘living’ rooms –

for which Winterthur is now recognized. Today, this museum collection and gardens constitute

one of the best preserved estates from early 20th century America.

Coffin’s theories and skills influenced a number of families with social status at the

beginning of the 20th century. She sustained herself as a professional by becoming lifelong friends

with her clients and involving herself in the planning of entire properties with emphasis on strict

supervision during installation. This element of her personality allowed Coffin to maintain and

preserve her designs as the matured into the landscapes she had envisioned. Before her death in

1957, Coffin had reportedly written a second book, Seeing Eye, which was never published, as the

design professions were again transitioning (108). With the close of World War II, the

elaborately designed estates and detailed gardening practices that defined her work had given

way to a simplistic, ‘do-it-yourself’ attitude; in short the Country Place had come to a close. With

this new attitude captivating the American public, estate staffs disappeared and a number of her

projects lost the balance between hardscape and planted elements so key to Coffin’s designs

resulting in the misinterpretation of her style and work.

While a number of her projects may only exist in unified form in her vast collection of

plans, details and correspondence now housed at the Winterthur Library, a number have been

preserved and opened to the public. The estates of Gibraltar, Winterthur, and Mt. Cuba, the

University of Delaware, and a few others offer a glimpse of the skill and attention to detail one of

the first female American landscape architects was capable of. Coffin always delighted in

interacting with mature landscapes both natural and created. To her, “…shears in the hands of

the average jobbing gardener are, indeed, a dangerous implement. As much devastation can be

done in a few moments that will take an equal number of years to repair…the idea of the

unconscious devastator being apparently that any growth other than the regularity of a clipped

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hedge is untidy.” (108). Understanding the importance of plant materials, their requirements,

and the palette of options plants provide may begin to offer a clearer picture as to how Coffin

created and how she saw the world around her. It would do us well today, to explore this and

remember that any garden whether large or small, is the product of ‘money, manure and

maintenance’ with a little generosity mixed in…

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Bibliography Adamiak, Stanley J. “The 1779 Sullivan Campaign: A Little Known Offensive Strategic To The

War Breaks the Indian Nation’s Power.” The Early American Review. 1998. <http://www.earlyamerica.com/review/1998/sullivan.html> 27/4/09.

Bayberry Land Biography. “Marian Cruger Coffin, 1876-1951.” < 

<http://www.town.southampton.ny.us/specialgallery/bayberry/marion_poster.pdf> 15/2/09.

Coffin, Marian Cruger. Trees and Shrubs for Landscape Effects. New York: Charles Scribner’s

Sons, 1940. Fleming, Nancy. Money, Manure & Maintenance; ingredients for successful gardens of Marian

Coffin Pioneer Landscape Architect 1876-1957. Hong Kong: South China Printing Co, 1995.

Hail, Michael W. “The Art of Landscaping.” Messenger. 2 (1993): 4.

<http://www.udel.edu/PR/Messenger/93/2/40.html> 28/4/09. Newton, Norman T. Design on the Land: The Development of Landscape Architecture.

Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1971. Zaitzevsky, Cynthia. Long Island Landscapes and the Women Who Designed Them. New York:

W.W. Norton and Company, 2007.

Websites Coffin Image: <http://www.tclf.org/landslide/2002/coffin_bio.htm> 25/4/09. Winterthur Website: <http://www.winterthur.org/about/history.asp> 25/4/09.

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